


Compromise

by Lassarina



Category: Final Fantasy XII
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-10
Updated: 2013-05-10
Packaged: 2017-12-10 22:51:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/791098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lassarina/pseuds/Lassarina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ashe has been learning the hard way that, even as queen, she cannot have it all her own way.  Still, she can at least make the attempt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Compromise

**Author's Note:**

  * For [owlmoose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/owlmoose/gifts).



> Written for DOINK! FF Exchange, for the prompt "Ashe, Balthier, and a stolen moment on the Strahl. Can be during or after the events of the game. I love the two of them together, but I don't love hand-waving all the issues that stand between them having a relationship. I want to see them finding time for each other *despite* those all things. "

"What on earth are you doing here?" Balthier demanded.

Ashe smiled from the teeth outward. It was not much, as greetings went, but at least she had had the satisfaction of watching his eyes widen in surprise before he regained control of himself. "Inspecting your cargo for illicit items," she said, though it was a ridiculous lie and they both knew it.

"I'm afraid I don't steal princesses anymore." Balthier looked her over from head to toe. "Even ones as lovely as yourself."

Ashe tilted her chin up and met his eyes. "I am not a princess anymore," she said, each word precisely enunciated. "I am a queen."

"Perhaps I should have said I don't steal royalty, then." He set down the box he was carrying. "What are you doing on my ship, princess?"

She bristled at the lack of proper address, and saw from his smirk that he had intended it. Some things were ever the same between them. To irritate in turn, she ignored his question. "Are you so legitimized, then, that you no longer sail the skies in search of plunder?" she asked, far too sweetly.

He chuckled and leaned back against the bulkhead, crossing his arms. "Are you here to serve me with an arrest warrant, Your Majesty?" he mocked her. "I am afraid you will find nothing of ill provenance on board the _Strahl._ She's clean as they come."

Ashe made a noncommittal noise and made a great show of inspecting the crate next to her. Foodstuffs, if she read the slanting Garif writing aright--probably for Fran, to judge from the smell of greenery that clung faintly to it. "Are you so certain of that, pirate?" She heard the rustle of fabric as he moved, and she turned and stepped aside so that he could not box her in between the crates, seeing the quirk of his eyebrow that acknowledged her point. She would not play coy; they had little enough time together as it was. "Would you care to wager?"

"A gambling queen," he mused. "Do your Councillors know how you spend your days, Lady Ashe?" She wondered how he could make such mockery of her title while still giving the semblance of respect.

"The Councillors are not here," she said, abandoning all semblance of her pretext. "I am here because I wish it. If you do not wish me here, then I shall go and you shall be free to sail your skies, pirate."

"I did not say I did not wish you here." He took a step closer, close enough now to lean down and rest his forehead against hers, and sighed. "Must you always come seeking a fight?"

"Is that what I am seeking?" She would not embrace him; let him take the risk. Her entire life had become calculations of risk and reward, with far more riding on the outcome than her own dignity.

"In truth, Ashe, I have not the faintest notion what you are seeking," he said, and she heard the bitterness.

She wondered if he would just fly away if she admitted it, but her heart had been broken before and it did not kill her. "I think I am seeking things in too many different directions," she said. "Take you, for example."

"Oh, is that your intention?" She could hear his effort to shift the conversation back onto light, familiar ground, and though the coward in her welcomed the aversion of risk, some things were more important.

"I cannot leave," she said, "and you cannot stay. And yet I cannot in my own mind reconcile these things, and come to terms with them."

He stepped back, and she missed his warmth. The silence stretched out, thin and brittle as stalks of echo grass. She respected him for not spewing some platitude that would have proven itself untrue in short order.

"What would you have me do, Ashe?" he said. He was watching her with narrowed eyes, as though he sought the signs of a trap. "As you said, you will not leave, and I will not stay."

She nodded to acknowledge the distinction he made. Her hands curled into fists, and she felt the sting of her nails digging deep into her palms. "I do not know," she said, and the lie was dry on her tongue. She swallowed hard and tried again. "I would—I would have whatever I may."

"Your Councillors will want you to wed, and produce an heir," he said. He was not looking at her.

"They will take whatever heir I provide and be content with it, for I will not be ruled by old men who wish they were dealing with my brothers," Ashe spat. She saw his flinch, and nearly laughed. "Have no fear, pirate, I will not see you hunted to the ends of Ivalice to act as consort and father."

"Do you not want those things?" he asked, in an odd tone.

"I have not thought of it," she said.

"If you will not be truthful with me, I will put you out and leave." He was ever too perceptive.

"What use pining for what I cannot have?" she asked, and hated herself for the way her eyes stung. "I must produce an heir, and I will, but I—" She checked herself, and chose her words with greater care. "I will do it in my own time, and with the man of my choosing, not theirs." She turned away from him. "If it is not something you desire, then say it; I would not trap you." _As your father did_ hung unspoken, though not unheard.

It was a long time before she heard the soft scrape of his shoes on the deck. A moment later he rested a hand on her shoulder, warm and comforting. She longed to lean back into it, but held herself away. She had laid her hand entire upon the table; she would bare herself no more to him.

His voice, when he spoke, was unsteady. "I do not know if I would want that," he said, and she thought she heard both yearning and fear under it, though perhaps it was only her imagination that coloured his words thus. "Yet I find myself unwilling to...cut my losses." His hand tightened fractionally, and he tugged so that she turned to face him. She had seen him so vulnerable only twice before: once at Phon, and once atop Ridorana. "I will not stay," he said.

"I know."

When he leaned forward to kiss her, she leaned in to meet him, and wrapped her arms around his neck. As compromises went, it was one of the most palatable she had made.


End file.
